Friday, May 27, 2016

Hollywood
loves telling stories about itself. But part of the problem with Jay Roach’s Trumbo (2015) is it is so slavishly
devoted to the exoneration of its subject, screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo (Bryan
Cranston) it cannot see the proverbial forest for the trees; namely, Trumbo’s
innocence. John McNamara’s screenplay quickly devolves into a series of vignettes
loosely strung together; a rather turgid textbook of the blacklist with myopic
focus on one of the infamous ‘Hollywood Ten’ at the expense of minimizing the
other nine lives directly impacted. I would like to impart on contemporary film
makers that there is a fine line of distinction between telling a good story,
telling a factual story, and telling one for which the impressions of life
would best be served by forgoing a modicum of truth in service to ‘artistic
license’. Trumbois not a biopic of
the man; McNamara’s script cobbling together the incidents of Trumbo’s flawed defiance
during the Red Menace with a badly fumbled documentarian’s ambition, leaving
Cranston’s perpetually whiskey-soaked and Benzadrine-popping curmudgeon
preciously too little room to maneuver and/or deviate from espousing keynotes
in the Communist manifesto or spitting pithy platitudes to unsettle members of
Congress while ruffling the plucked plumage of arch nemesis, nationally
syndicated gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren). Alas, this is a narrative
misfire from which this movie never entirely recovers.

The other eminent
weakness here is casting. Apart from Cranston’s rather histrionic central
performance, at times veering dangerously close to becoming the clichéd clown
of the piece - all mismanaged and badly bungled Marxist buffoonery – the rest
of the stars who populate this rigidly structured antiquity are little more
than set dressing. Looking for scapegoats and a clear-cut villain on which to
hang its liberalized cause célèbre, Helen Mirren’s maven of mirth hurriedly
federalizes into a doggedly toxic gargoyle; drunk on the measly mirage of her
veiled threats, oozing from the ink of her poisoned pen; enough to accost MGM’s
raja, L.B. Mayer (Richard Portnow) as a skirt-chasing ‘kike’. While no one can
know for certain; this probably never happened, as Mayer was still a good three
years away from being ousted from his untouchable seat of authority and could
have – and distinctly would have –
squashed the venomous Hopper like a bug. Hedda had guts. But Mayer had
power…real power. And Hopper’s deliriously ribald bitch is the best of the lot
in Trumbo. The other performances,
from David James Elliott’s glowering and ultra-wooden caricature of John Wayne
to Dean O'Gorman’s prepubescent and edgy, Kirk Douglas, are so uniformly bad, they
bear mentioning only as examples of how ridiculous this sort of retrofitted
‘history’ can get when time and attention are not closely paid to truly
resurrecting people as well as the period. There is a fine line between
emulation and parody, particularly when embarking on the fool’s errand to
recreate iconic legends of the silver screen, filling their immortal shoes with
actors who neither tower in their own stature – as any actor of merit must –
nor remotely resemble – physically, or in manner and deportment – the
larger-than-life figures they are attempting to embody and rival.

In the back
catalog of unique talents, vying for acceptability as their alter egos, I am
immediately reminded of Sissy Spacek’s monumental incarnation of first lady of
country music, Loretta Lynn in Coal
Miner’s Daughter (1980); kudos to Beverly D'Angelo’s haunting portrait as
Patsy Cline from this same movie; or Paul Sorvino’s uncanny channeling of Henry
Kissinger for Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995)
and Albert Finney’s bone-chilling renaissance to Winston Churchill in 2002’s The Gathering Storm. In the shadow of
these memorable homages is Michael Stuhlbarg’s Edward G. Robinson in Trumbo; a grotesquely sentimental, yet
queerly unsympathetic, and utterly painful attempt by a minor talent to ape a
legendary one. Has Struhlbarg ever seen Edward G. Robinson: not just at the
movies but giving an interview?!? At least if he had physicality down pat, as
say Robert Sacchi in The Man with
Bogart’s Face (1980), then suspended plausibility could be applied in moments
where bad acting creates an obvious disconnect between truth and
verisimilitude. Struhlbarg is hardly alone in his flawed gentrification of a
big name star. We have already mentioned David James Elliott and Dean O’Gorman
as a pair of unprepossessing fakes; the former, in flashes, coming close to
sounding like ‘Duke’ Wayne if still looking more like a robotic ‘Jag’ knock-off with too much starch in
his britches; and O’Gorman, favoring the physical shading and limited acting
range of a William Baldwin, wholly lacks the versatility and chutzpah of a
dynamo like Kirk Douglas. Others in this fractured mélange do not fare any
better. John Goodman’s Frank King has the physical girth, but lacks the bearing
of King’s own summer stock version of the indie showman a la Michael Todd. Christian
Berkel does a wicked lampoon of the oft’ maniacal, brilliant bastard/director,
Otto Preminger (oh well, at least he has the accent). Rick Kelly is a
ridiculous falsification of J.F.K. whom I kept expecting to suddenly depart
from his cameo and shout out, ‘Vote
Quimby’ (to any fan of The Simpsons
this reference will immediately ring true).

Let us get
honest here for just a moment. Thanks mostly to Production Designer, Mark
Ricker and Costume Designer, Daniel Orlandi, Trumbohas the visual patina of late forties/early fifties Hollywood
to recommend it. But this is not enough of an incentive to see the picture, nor
is stock-piling its’ roster with middling actors who cannot hold a candle to
their incandescent counterparts. Aside: I noticed no one deigned attempt a carbon
copy of Audrey Hepburn, as example (how could anyone even begin to suggest Hepburn’sthe luminosity anyway?) – mercifully
using inserts from the real ‘reel’
classic, Roman Holiday (1953) to fill
in this gap. And wasting credible ones like Diane Lane, in a part any fledgling
starlet could have (and should have) performed, with little more training than
a horn-tooting seal at SeaWorld, is not the route to go either. So, if
Hollywood today cannot even recapture the inviolate grandeur of its outwardly
halcyon and rose-colored past – all studio-sanctioned banana oil, slickly
packaged in highly controlled junkets and heavily concocted glam-bam magazine
puff pieces, then perhaps it is high time the industry stopped trying to
rewrite itself as anything more disingenuous.

John
McNamara’s screenplay goes to great pains to canonize Dalton Trumbo as the
patron saint of all minorities in danger of being swallowed whole by that
ultra-conservatism that bred fear, loathing and panic during the Truman/McCarthy
era; foregoing – or rather – minimizing the fact Trumbo was a fairly outspoken
card-carrying member of the Communist Party; a real disconnect between the
perceived Commi, threatening to topple American idealism with the stroke of his
pen, and Trumbo’s own seemingly autonomous position within the corporate
structure of Hollywood itself, as the highest paid personage in his chosen
profession, equally presumed too big to fail, whatever his convictions. The
real Dalton Trumbo would likely have approved of such exoneration, though
arguably, not of the results achieved herein on his behalf. For although the movie resonates with
Trumbo’s sharp-tongued introspection, the character, as conceived and
amalgamated by McNamara and actor, Bryan Cranston, begins to fall apart under
the strain of such platitudes and cheaply sentimentalized familial dreck –
embodied in several key scenes scattered throughout the latter half of the
picture, prominently featuring Elle Fanning as the writer’s daughter, Nikola
who has her own mind, social causes to champion, and, increasingly resents her
father’s myopic view of sly revenge that supersedes the family’s need to live
from under such microscopic dissections. Yet, even as dime store melodrama, Trumbodisappoints; the snippets and
sound bites stitched together in all too brief wan ghost-flowered impressions
of the man, his purpose and his plight.

Trumbo’s
elitism is at odds with his communist propaganda; McNamara’s screenplay
attempting rather unsuccessfully a buddy/buddy relationship between Trumbo and
fellow chain-smoking/cancer-ridden writer, Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.). Hird
doesn’t much approve of Trumbo living high on the hog on a serenely pastoral
farm. After all, how does this bode with Marx’s theorized collective sacrifice?
Well, okay – it doesn’t. Trumbo as hypocrite? Not, entirely. Lest we forget
Marx’s utopian ‘cure all’ for capitalism was not implemented as written and certainly
never was to see the true light of day in Soviet Russia. Like far too many
movies being made with a disingenuous political slant in America these days,
America itself – or, at the very least, its’ government – and definitely its heroes of yore – are being
viewed through the lens of even more insidiously misguided uber-liberal/communist
empathies as the worst kind of enemy; Robert Taylor’s infamous HUAC testimony, “I think they should all be sent back to
Russia” inserted yet again to prove a point – both of arrogance and
nationalized propensity to infer ‘patriotism’ as the real boogie man. There are
distinct cracks in this Liberty Bell, however, Trumbo, attempting to have his
point of view heard – if not respected – confronting America’s Teflon-coated
iconography of itself, then best embodied in the grandee John Wayne. Trumbo’s
point is, in fact, exceptionally well placed, suggesting to Wayne, “If you’re going to talk about World War II
as if you personally won it, let’s be clear where you were stationed - on a
film set, shooting blanks, wearing makeup, and if you're going to hit me, I'd
like to take off my glasses.”

Poor Trumbo.
He has made rather a bad enemy of the vigorous maverick of the western/war
movie; also, the treacherous Hedda Hopper who has no compunction about
blackmailing MGM’s L.B. Mayer into letting Trumbo out of his contract or else
made to endure the onslaught of idiotic accusations and innuendoes surely to
tarnish, if not entirely dismantle, his empire.
Trumbo is one of ten
screenwriters singled out and subpoenaed to testify before the House Committee
on Un-American Activities (HUAC), presided over with an iron fist by former New
Jersey stockbroker cum politico, J. Parnell Thomas (James DuMont), who later
turns out to be guilty of corruption; the proverbial ‘pot’ calling ‘the kettle’
black. Trumbo encourages a small contingent of his contemporaries, including
Hird to stand their ground. While they might be held in contempt of Congress
for refusing to testify and ‘name names’, Trumbo is comforted in the knowledge
the liberal majority on the Supreme Court, who abhor HUAC on principle alone,
will never allow any such conviction to stand.

In the
meantime, close personal friend, Edward G. Robinson, an ardent supporter of their
cause, sells his Van Gogh Portrait of Père Tanguy to raise money for the
Hollywood Ten’s legal defense fund. However, standing in the shadow of some
very unsettling times; the conviction of the Rosenbergs, the ascendency of
Joseph McCarthy, and, the Communist witch hunts cutting a swath through
Hollywood’s artistic community with a scorched earth policy, Robinson breaks
under pressure and the very real threat he will never work again. Given the
choice, he fingers Trumbo as a communist. The wounds from this betrayal will
never heal. But Trumbo has equally underestimated the strength of his own
cunning; also what the unexpected death of Justice Wiley Rutledge will do to
his chances of getting a fair appeal. Instead, Trumbo and his brethren go to
prison; eleven months all told in Texarkana; Trumbo striking a rather tenuous
partnership with convicted murderer, Virgil Brooks (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje)
to ease his daily duties.

Newly
released, Trumbo reasons time served behind bars equates to time served in the
court of public opinion. Alas, old friends – or perhaps, merely fair-weather
ones – like producer, Buddy Ross (Roger Bart) have turned their backs on him,
seemingly for good; forcing Trumbo to sell his farm and move into a modest but
comfortable bungalow in town. Even in the heart of suburbia he is scrutinized,
now by a bigoted neighbor who leaves dead birds and debris in his backyard pool
and spray paints ominous threats on his fence. Blacklisted and desperate to
work, Trumbo writes Roman Holiday
for Paramount, allowing good friend, Ian McLellan Hunter (Alan Tudyk) to take
screen credit; Trumbo generously agreeing to split the money. The irony? The
screenplay is honored with an Academy Award. But this is gossipy Hollywood at
its zenith, and rumblings immediately stir that Hunter is a front for Trumbo;
Hedda, quite unable to conclusively unearth the truth from Trumbo’s own
whiskey-stained lips but thereafter, making it her passion to ruin him
completely. Now, Trumbo goes to work for the King Brothers, Frank and Hymie
(Stephen Root) – a C-grade production company, pumping out pulpy serials for
the matinee crowd. Trumbo wisely deduces the King Corp. could do with a bit of
classing up. And Frank, who openly admits he is only in the picture-making biz
for ‘the pussy and the money instantly
recognizes he can get quality prose dirt cheap to enhance his credibility in
the business.

On the home
front, the strain of churning out script after script begins to involve
Trumbo’s marriage. His wife, Cleo and their teenage children all assume roles
as his secret couriers, Trumbo demanding they put all of their lives on hold to
perpetuate the ruse. Eldest daughter, Nikola accepts her part in this magic
lantern farce, but steadily comes to resent her father’s myopic distortion of
their home life. They’re a family, damn it. Not his employees. Trumbo has
greater luck getting his alienated brethren in Hollywood to write even more
scripts for the King Brothers; their finest achievement yet, The Brave One (1956) – a powerful tale
of an unlikely friendship between a Spanish boy and a bull. The screenplay,
very personal to Trumbo, wins him his second uncredited Academy Award –
accepted on his behave by the mysterious Robert Rich – a pseudonym for a fellow
who actually does not exist. Hedda is incensed. But Frank King will not be
threatened into firing his most profitable writer. Amidst this hullabaloo,
Arlen Hird dies of lung cancer, hopelessly destitute and leaving behind two
young sons whom Trumbo refuses to take money from after their father’s
wake.

Suspicion
mounts and rumors swirl that Trumbo has become a one-man ghostwriting phenomena.
Recognizing the transparency of his talent on the screen, actor, Kirk Douglas recruits
Trumbo to adapt Spartacus (1960).
For decades, the real Kirk Douglas has maintained he was responsible for defying the blacklist by demanding Dalton
Trumbo’s name be given its proper screen credit for this movie. But Trumbo– the movie – would have us
believe Douglas intended Trumbo to remain anonymous as before; pressured even
by Hedda to ensure this would happen, yet as determined to outfox the industry
after director, Otto Preminger, who hires Trumbo to translate Leon Uris’
sprawling novel into a screenplay for his movie version of Exodus. Playing both sides against the middle, Trumbo tells
Preminger he is too busy writing Spartacus
to partake – implying it will be the first movie to bear his name in the
credits. Preminger asserts he would be willing to give Trumbo a screen credit
too if he accepts the new assignment; Trumbo returning to Douglas with this
‘news’ and thus forcing Douglas to beat out Preminger’s offer by only a few
months between the two theatrical releases that will both carry Trumbo’s name. With President Kennedy’s endorsement during a
private screening, the blacklist is irreversibly shattered. Trumboconcludes with a foreshadowing
of things to come. Hedda Hopper’s days in Hollywood are at an end. We flash ahead to 1970, Trumbo accepting accolades
long overdue and speaking out against the victimization of the blacklist: a
terrible chapter in American politics that ruined far too many lives, distorted
reality and decimated a good many Hollywood careers.

This penultimate
speech ought to have been a stirring, if sad-eyed invective; a dramatic
summarization of the more informal torment inflicted upon creatives in the
entertainment industry. After all, the blacklist was ultimately a discredit and
a hypocrisy having very little to do about ending communism in the United
States. Instead, Bryan Cranston’s inflections prove polemic than anemic in
reassessing the weighty fallout that actually occurred. In Dalton Trumbo’s
case, turning the camera lens on this historically ugly chapter in American
politics as one man’s plight against its machinery has not humanized the saga
at all, so much as transformed it into a scant and terribly unprepossessing
TripTik through history, better evolved in author, Bruce Cook’s biography on
which this movie is based. Cranston’s portrait of Trumbo is subtly nuanced, and
arguably, the best thing in it. Yet, it is hampered by John McNamara’s
interpretation of the source material; also, by director, Jay Roach’s
inexcusable boredom, his complete inability to sustain any scene beyond a few
loaded barbs, given short shrift before cutting away to the next scene and then
the next, and the next, with a complete lack of finesse for building dramatic irony
or even mounting tension. Either might have sustained and nourished his rather
pedestrian sense of cinema storytelling. But at 124 minutes, Trumbodrags. To be sure, there is a more compelling narrative yet
to be told within. But it is to be discovered elsewhere. I cannot stress enough
my dismay with a good many contemporary film makers endeavoring to paint their
own impressions over the past in broad brush strokes only to succumb to the
stringency of remaining ‘true’ to history itself and thereafter sacrificing
virtually every last vestige of artistic license, while introducing –
intentionally or not – new biases into the mix. Tell the truth or tell us a
fairy tale. But please – please – do not
bastardize the precepts of either in your feeble attempts to homogenize these
two irreconcilable worlds as one.

If remaining true to history is, in fact, Roach’s
mantra, he would have done better to make a documentary about Trumbo rather
than a reenactment. I have stated as much before, but reality is oft’
depressing and unprepossessing. Movies are, as some brilliant minds have long
since pointed out, life - with all the
dull parts cut out.Trumbo is
life with a lot of the dull parts left in! It misses the mark by not being able
to capture the luridness, immediacy and danger of a very real threat to
American civil liberties that was, at least for a time, perpetuated by its own
government in the name of democracy. That message is lost, buried, bungled or
set aside in Trumbo; presumably to
give us a more intimate portrait of one man’s blow back. It is therefore rather
disheartening to discover the characters inhabiting Dalton Trumbo’s private
life as cardboard cutouts; soulless stick-figures with little distinction or
opportunity to shine and virtually nothing to make the audience care one way or
the other about them. It doesn’t work, at all and Trumbo – the movie – falls flat: as a melodrama, an entertainment
or even an overly simplified history lesson.

Trumbo on Blu-ray isn’t all that exciting either. Universal’s
effort is competently rendered, but not much pop or punch to the image. Trumbo’s
1080p transfer is solid, if unremarkable. It also occasionally lacks crispness;
the fine details in Jim Denault’s cinematography getting lost under a thin
murky haze. Colors can be robust; Helen Mirren’s wildly amusing assortment of
bonnets and chapeaus exhibiting some frothy forties and early fifties
Kodachrome-esque tones. Skin tones adopt a ruddy California sun-kissed tint and
contrast, overall, is good. Film grain also looks quite natural. The 5.1 DTS
audio is adequate with crisp dialogue and a few nicely placed sound effects and
music cues to sustain. Extras are limited to a junket produced to promote the
movie; also, an original theatrical trailer covering a lot of the same ground.
Honestly, I could have watched the trailer and been thoroughly satisfied.
Bottom line: pass and be glad that you did.

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

What do you
get when you cross a sensual, jazz-loving redhead with a battered old salt?
Need a clue? It won’t take more than just one. James Norton is Anglican vicar,
Sidney Chambers; the uber-totty, if socially, philosophically and, morally conflicted
man of the cloth whose post war bromantic chemistry heats to a boil after he
discovers a penchant for spare-time sleuthing with a religiously ambiguous
middle-aged and crusty, Detective Inspector, Geordie Keating (Robson Green). We’ve
seen it all before – the young man/old man, unlikeliest of buddy/buddy
alliances; each in search of his own truth as he skulks about the dark
(metaphorically, speaking) with or without those post-war Victorian hang-ups
and counterintuitive burgeoning of a social conscience and personal angst. Borrowing
every virtue and vice from the Britcom crime-solving dramedy playbook,
occasionally with shameless rip-offs of Agatha Christie, Inspector Morse,
Midsomer Murders and, Father Brown (among too many others to list herein), Grantchester(2014-present) nevertheless
offers a sustained and refreshing effervescence beneath its
highborn/high-starched collars and cuffs; moodily elegant as a pseudo-noir,
and, with oodles of post-war nostalgia to boot. In only six episodes, Grantchestermanages a minor coup; to
establish its principles, characters and gain widespread acceptance on two
continents – and – with Season Three already in the works – quite likely poised
as an enriched substitute for our collective Downton Abbey withdrawal; a viable reason to fall in love all over
again with a new assortment of cleverly homogenized, upper-crusts for whom
homegrown homicide is much more about old-fashioned ‘locked room’ ‘who done
it’s’ and far less involved with those grizzly copper/capers of our present age
where the corpse gets splayed, decapitated or otherwise gruesomely disemboweled
and put on public view to repulse; the crime itself, clinically dissected by a
pair of rumpled and self-pitying dicks.

It is
sincerely heartwarming to see a cops n’ capers melodrama made today that does
not rely on the jittery hand-held camera and chop-shop styled editing to
achieve its discombobulating thrills; better still, to wallow in Julian Court
and Kieran McGuigan’s supremely edifying and lushly staged period
cinematography. There is a pictorial gorgeousness to Grantchesterthat defies its contemporaries and for which Brit-born
entertainment in general has long embraced an affinity, bucking the trend for
fast-paced/cut-up performances, I suspect, primarily because in Britain they
still train actors to command a scene on skill and stage presence alone without
the trickery and camouflage of heavy-handed editing to confuse and anesthetize the
audience. Grantchester demands its
audience pay attention to even the smallest nuance and detail – the clues,
neatly laid out for anyone possessing the intellectual wherewithal to solve a
crime. Our Sidney Chambers is a very bright bulb indeed; at least ten steps
ahead of the local constabulary and occasionally more than two preceding his
counterpart. Geordie Keating is not a dull man; but he has become somewhat
complacently jaded by his years on the force – careworn and stifled in his ability
to seek out, embrace and engage the imaginative criminal mind.

The crimes we
encounter in Grantchesterare highly
personal to at least one of these participants coming in after the fact; Sidney
Chambers, serving as spiritual counsel to this very gossipy village just
outside Cambridge, sternly managed by his otherwise devoted housekeeper, Mrs.
Maguire(Tessa Peake-Jones), received in friendship by
underling, curate, Leonard Finch (Al Weaver), while, working through his
itching passion for two exotic women, each of whom decidedly outclasses him;
long-time gal pal and heiress, Amanda Kendall (Morven Christie), who is about
to be married to Guy Hopkins (Tom Austen), another member of the ruling class
(simply because he asked!!!), and, German ex-pat,Hildegard
Staunton (Pheline Roggan). Sidney Chambers is a lucky sod; Geordie
acknowledging that his cleric’s collar has done absolutely nothing to diminish
his animal magnetism radiating with the opposite sex. Apparently, however, it is exceedingly
difficult to be a stud in Grantchester – what, with the locals chronically
mindful of Sidney’s dalliances with Amanda, scornful of his ‘part-time’ hobby,
fast beginning to dominate his sense of proportion and duty to his chosen
profession; insidiously opposed to his burgeoning romantic prospects with
Hildegard, and, Sidney himself, all but submarining these by indulging in a one-night
indiscretion with smoldering jazz chanteuse, Gloria Dee (Camilla Beeput).

It’s taken
five directors (Tim Fywell, Harry Bradbeer, Jill Robertson, Edward Bennett,
David O'Neill), and four writers (Daisy Coulam, James Runcie, John Jackson, Joshua
St. Johnston) to bring Runcie’s collection of short stories – The
Grantchester Mysteries – to life. Arguably, the results have been well
worth the effort. Grantchester is
tautly scripted, succinctly acted, and magnificently tricked out in post-war
period costuming by Sam Perry and Emma Fryer. Composer, John Lunn (whose lush
orchestrations greatly contributed to the flavorful patina of Downton Abbey) hasn’t exactly outdone
himself this time around. While Grantchester’s
score is complimentary, the musical program lacks an iconic ‘theme’ for its
main title – each episode simply beginning without fanfare, and then a brief
musical arc to connect between the prologue and the scenes yet to follow it;
the end titles cue sounding more like a toss-away from the aforementioned
series, than a new standalone for this fledgling detective drama. Aside: I do sincerely hope more attention is
paid to this as Grantchesterappears
to be shaping up as another solid hit for the BBC.

A lot can
happen in the middle of this otherwise outwardly bucolic enclave; all lush
wisteria, cobblestone byways, thatched roofs and stucco facades, winding country
lanes leading through tightly knit neighborhoods and centuries old farms, with
enough period architecture to serve as mere window-dressing and backdrop for
these truly intriguing mystery/adventures.
Six of Runcie’s short stories make up Season One. The first episode is
rather inauspiciously not very indicative of where the series is headed; the
first-time ‘cute meet’ between Sidney
and Geordie delayed while the writer’s cover a bit of back story; first, the
lazily romantic double entendre between Sidney and Amanda; the two seen
enjoying long picnics and a clumsy mid-afternoon swim – the latter, unintentional,
as the rope Amanda is using to swing out over the lake suddenly snaps from its
tree branch, sending her headlong into the freezing waters and Sidney,
chivalrously diving in after her. Shortly, we will get more back story than we
bargain for – Sidney, haunted by bygone nightmares from the battlefield and
pressed to grapple with his heart-sore emotions, as Amanda has just announced
her engagement to Guy, “…because he asked
me…” Amanda reasons. Oh, now there’s a good reason, and how fickle is
woman.

On the home
front, Sidney has bigger fish to fry, his vicarage under constant inspection
from the prudish villagers, headlined by crotchety groundskeeper, Mr. Brandt (Chris
Bearne); the lot attending Sunday mass partly to hear the word of God, but
mostly to observe and make sly comment on Sidney’s evolution as their moral
compass; his household managed by the morally inflexible Mrs. Maguire, who
finds his commitments to the church torn asunder by his love of jazz (the
devil’s music), his predilection for strong drink (the devil’s tool), and, his
manly lust for woman beyond his grasp in the social register. Sidney’s new
hobby – crime-solving – will not fare much better with Mrs. Maguire’s respects.
“You need looking after, Mr. Chambers,”
she repeatedly reminds him. And indeed, Sidney could do worse than to have a
housekeeper as stringently and singularly devoted to satisfying his every need
– even if she rarely approves of at least half of them.

Things begin
to sizzle in the present when Sidney is called upon to deliver the benediction
and panegyric for the late Stephen Staunton(Eoin McCarthy) whose wife,
Hildegarde is somewhat ostracized for being German (and therefore, equally
suspected of being a Nazi sympathizer) during the traditional wake at a local
pub. There, vamp-ish Pamela Morton (Rachel Shelley) confides in Sidney her
suspicions that her husband’s business partner did not commit suicide by
blowing his brains out as originally believed, but actually murdered. The
question remains; by who? The firm’s secretary, Annabel Morrison (Michelle
Duncan) adored Stephen, regarding him as the better half of a somewhat tawdry
partnership. Pamela’s husband, Clive (Andrew Woodall) knew nothing of her
affair with Stephen. And Pamela herself would have no cause to stir up an
investigation if she had jealously pulled the trigger. Or would she? Part of
the exquisiteness of Grantchester
revolves around the writers’ ability to introduce us to ostensibly unrelated
characters – the payoff in these intros revealed, in some cases, several
episodes on. According this clever planning, we also meet Annie(Sia Berkeley) the prostitute, exploited for comic relief in Episode 1 as
she rather humorously tells Geordie to ‘bugger
himself sideways’, but later provides a pivotal clue to another puzzler in
the series.

The initial
‘cute meet’ between Sidney and Geordie is anything but cordial. Geordie has
just had some rather disheartening news – no, not about another case, but a
soccer match in which his team lost. We also meet Geordie’s wife, Cathy (Kacey
Ainsworth) who will figure more prominently in an upcoming episode. Again, the
writing sets up the particulars of each man’s invested interests in life. We
get to know something – a lot, actually – about these people that is not on the
menu of a straight-forward ‘who done it?’; such deviations to the central plot
only serving to thicken and enrich the on-going bromantic chemistry that
becomes the most enduring and endearing thread woven into the tapestry of their
lives. Barking up the wrong tree will become something of a habit with Sidney,
who, after reluctantly being brushed off by Geordie as trudging through ‘murky
waters’, proceeds to take matters into his own hands by investigating the widow
Staunton. Sidney’s unbiased approach ingratiates him to Hildegarde. But along the way, clues are planted by
Sidney, with Geordie’s complicity, to deliberately snuff out a killer. And,
predictably, one emerges before the end of Episode 1; although, perhaps not the
one anticipated.

In Episode 2,
Sidney reluctantly agrees to attend Amanda’s engagement party with his sister,
Jennifer (Fiona Button) and her boyfriend, Soho jazz club manager-in-training,
Johnny Johnson (Ukweli Roach); the swank affair staged at a pastoral country
estate. Amanda’s father, Sir Edward Kendell (Pip Torrens), atypically
toffy-nosed and condescending to intrusions made by the lower classes, does not
approve of their invite – even if he tolerates it somewhat on his daughter’s
behalf, still unaware of the depth of Amanda’s affections for Sidney. Amanda’s
beau, Guy is in attendance; also psychology lecturer, Daphne Young (Pippa
Nixon) as well as Guy’s best friend, politico, William Calthrope (Harry
Hadden-Paton) and his rather shrewish wife, Lilian (Carolina Main) who, very
shortly will become the corpse de jour of this unintentionally heated house
party – the gathering distracted by the sudden disappearance of Amanda’s
engagement ring and a wild accusation made by Guy that Johnny is the thief…and
quite possibly, a murderer – simply, because he is black. In Episode Three, Sidney takes on a new curate
at the vicarage; introverted, Leonard Finch whom Geordie quickly pegs ‘a
pansy’. Guy asks Sidney to officiate his
pending marriage to Amanda at Grantchester, seemingly unaware of how deep even
the thought of it wounds Sidney and makes Amanda extremely uncomfortable. At
the same time, Sidney is drawn into another marital quagmire when a middle-aged
Lothario and serial polygamist, using the alias Arthur Evans (Kieran O'Brien),
is accused of poisoning Daisy Livingston (Jean Marsh), the invalided mother of
his latest fiancée/victim, Lucy (Lucy Black) who had strong misgivings about
their marriage. However, when Lucy’s
aunt is also found dead under spurious circumstances, Sidney begins to suspect
the doctor (Mark Bonnar) presiding over Daisy’s cancer treatment of foul play.

Arguably, Grantchesterhits its stride in Episode
Four; ironically, one of two episodes not based directly on The Grantchester Mysteries
short stories; the characters by now firmly ensconced in our memory; the
writing as taut and compelling as serialized TV gets; each character’s personal
traits begun to take on a life of their own as we follow this ensemble through
even more heart-rending intrigues, beginning with Sidney’s chivalrous dawn
rescue of affluent socialite, Marion Taylor (Flora Montgomery) from a burning
mansion. Caretaker, Tobias Hall (Struan Rodger) is a dark horse, unsympathetic
to his master, Dominic (Lee Williams); perhaps, shielding a more insidious
family secret, rife for blackmail and involving local gas station pump jockey, Ben
Blackwood (Rory Fleck-Byrne), who has been carrying on a notorious homosexual
flagrante delicto with Dominic, unbeknownst to Ben’s father, Vic (Wayne Foskett).
This episode pulls no punches; introducing us to the homophobic aspects of 1950’s
English police officers; DC Atkins (Joe Claflin) harassing, assaulting and arresting
suspects on mere suspicion of ‘buggery’; Sidney and Geordie divided in their
opinions while pursuing the proper course of investigation. Lest we forget homosexuality was considered a
crime in England, punishable under the law until 1967. This episode is also
noteworthy for its superb subplot; Geordie, distracted by his infant son’s near
fatal bout of pneumonia; his inexcusable absence, leaving Cathy to tend to the
ailing child while he increasingly grows more sullen, morose and occasionally
violent with drink and his blind pursuit of Dominic’s murderer.

Episode Five
returns our bromantic crime solvers to more familiar territory. Having invited
Hildegarde to move into the vicarage to teach piano, Sidney decides to
encourage Geordie to partake of a London outing to the Straight 8; a jazz club
managed by Johnny’s brutish father, Archie Johnson (Peter Egan). We also meet,
Johnny’s sister, Claudette (Natasha Cottriall); alas, not long for this world –
heinously bludgeoned to death in the alley behind the club on her way to meet
lover, Walter Sterling (Nakay Kpaka), deemed an undesirable by Archie. The club’s
bouncer, Tommy (Andy Beckwith) is suspicious of Archie’s chauffeur, Justin (Ted
Reilly), confessing to Geordie and Sidney that some years ago, Archie allowed
his temper to get the better of him, murdering one Charlie Rush, the man Archie
suspected of having an affair with his wife. Since that time, Archie has held
this affair against his own children. At
Claudette’s wake, Johnny confronts his father, suggesting he might have killed
his own daughter. But Sidney suspects a far more insidious plot afoot. Meanwhile, Scotland Yard DCI Jacob Williams(Nicholas Sidi) is unimpressed by Geordie and Sidney’s
meddling. He orders the pair to return to Grantchester at once. Defying this
edict, Sidney remains behind in London. Separated from Geordie and on a bender
after being reunited with Amanda at the Straight 8, resulting in Guy’s revelation
his fiancée has deep-rooted affections for the vicar of Grantchester, Sidney falls
prey to a momentary lapse in character. He awakens the next morning in singer,
Gloria Dee’s boudoir; the two having shared a passionate evening of which
Sidney is able to recall very little. Returning to Grantchester riddled with
guilt, Sidney lies to Hildegarde, but later, with Leonard’s guidance and
compassion, will eventually confess his indiscretion to her.

Episode Six,
also not based on Runcie’s book, offers us a future glimpse into Sidney’s deep
and abiding respect for Geordie. Investigating the murder of a Cambridge police
detective, Jones (Matthew Jure), Sidney is reunited with the prostitute, Annie,
who saw a man conversing with the deceased cop moments before he was shot; the
name ‘Merlin’ mentioned in their lethal conversation. After Geordie is near fatally wounded while
pursuing a suspect in an abandoned warehouse, Sidney takes up the case alone;
discovering ‘Merlin’ is not a person, but a corporation managed by a rather
thuggish land developer, James Heath (Adam James). Among his many
indiscretions, Heath beats his wife, Grace (Natasha O'Keeffe). Sidney learns
that Jones and another murder victim, Thomas Langshaw, both served in the
military under Heath. However, when he asks Heath to provide him with a
complete list of the men who were in his squadron, Sidney is instead promptly
shown the door and told not to return. Stymied in his endeavor to avenge
Geordie’s near death, and suffering from too much drink, Sidney crashes Amanda’s
engagement luncheon with a misguided and thoroughly belated declaration of
love. He is promptly refused, manhandled by Guy and escorted out by Amanda’s
father. Sidney is haunted by Geordie’s last word ‘heart’ before slipping into a
coma. Grace leaves an envelope for Sidney containing a list of the men who were
in his squadron, implying to Sidney he was a violent man before and during the
war too. Eventually, Sidney tracks down Robert Miller (Paul Hilton) on his farm,
an erratic ex-G.I., tormented by the memory of being ordered by Heath to
cold-bloodedly assassinate three captured German soldiers during the war;
Miller’s inability to do so, branding him a yellow-bellied coward by Heath and
the rest of the men in his squad.

Miller tells
Sidney he believes Heath is murdering these men so that his war crimes are kept
secret. However, as Sidney waits for Miller to go with him to the local
authorities he discovers in a photograph that Miller has a rather prominent tattoo
of a heart on his forearm. Miller shot Geordie. In the ensuing tussle, Miller
momentarily subdues Sidney before fleeing the farmhouse. Telephoning for help,
Sidney pursues Miller into the fields. As the police close in, Miller takes his
own life with the same gun he used to shoot Geordie rather than face
incarceration. The incident stirs a memory for Sidney that he confesses to
Geordie, who has awakened from his coma. During the war, one of his soldiers
was ambushed by a German officer in the woods. As the man lay dying in his
arms, Sidney put a bullet into him as no amount of medical attention would have
saved his life. In the spirit of candor, Sidney returns to Hildegarde and makes
his one night stand with Gloria Dee known. Having once been betrayed in
marriage, Hildegarde cannot forgive Sidney and leaves the vicarage with a
broken heart. In the final moments of Season One, Sidney is reunited with
Amanda in the art gallery where they first met. Although Guy has magnanimously
afforded him an invitation to their wedding, Sidney will not attend. Amanda
reasons this is for the best and the two part company as friends. In montage,
Grace Heath displays bruises sustained by her husband’s vicious abuse to his
investors, thereby destroying his credibility as a businessman. Hildegard begins
a new romance as Amanda walks down the aisle. Surrounded by his extended
family, Sidney and Geordie enjoy a picnic together; Sidney, hopeful about the
future, even as Geordie teases him about finding a wife who enjoys listening to
Bechet as much as he does.

GrantchesterSeason One is a deliciously understated and tasteful affair;
easily one of the most unassuming and engaging ‘new’ dramas on television
today. James Norton and Robson Green
have wonderful chemistry. Their friendship is slightly unbalanced by the series
focus on Norton’s waffling vicar. If a flaw can be found inGrantchester, it is that the buddy/buddy formula of the piece
occasionally suffers in Green’s absence; Geordie often coming in at the last
minute to help Sidney solve another one, using his badge to add a note of
officiousness to standardize the morality of this atypical police procedural melodrama.
Grantchesteris a lot more than
that, however, and intriguingly, we do not seem to lose the momentum of its crime-solving
badinage, despite the fact there is so much more going on behind the scenes.
The supporting cast is uniformly solid, if underused. Given the limitations of
six, one hour episodes, it will be interesting to see if Season Two rectifies
some of these shortcomings with more involved story lines. Bottom line:Grantchesteris top-tier ole-fashioned
entertainment in the best sense and tradition. You have to look long and hard
to find other serialized dramas as wittily written. Faith, love, and, murder: heaven
help us!

Part of the
Masterpiece Mysteries series line up, Grantchesterlooks pretty spiffy on Blu-ray from ITV and PBS Home Video. The widescreen
image is stunning and practically flawless, utilizing a subdued color palette
that bodes well for its stylized Kodachrome-ish post-war fifties patina. There
is really nothing at all to complain about here; a flawless effort with six
episodes spread over two discs; solid contrast, crisp detail and generally
desaturated hues to mimic an older vintage, yet still thoroughly please
contemporary sensibilities. It is one of
the oddities of PBS Home Video that they continue to master their discs in
1080i rather than 1080p; for what reason and to what purpose, I am sure I do
not know. Grantchester was shot
digitally, so a true 1080p rendering ought to have become standard practice by
now. The audio is rich and enveloping, John Lunn’s score leading the charge
with clear dialogue also benefiting. Extras are a tad disappointing; a lot of
junkets strewn together to suggest a ‘making
of’ when in actuality they can be distilled into little more than self-aggrandizing
sound bites. Not a fan of these to be sure, as they offer virtually nothing to
augment one’s appreciation for the monumental talents represented both in front
of and behind the camera. Talking heads saying silly things is a very poor
substitute for a quality ‘behind the scenes’ look into the particulars of how
such a series is put together. Oh well, it’s the series itself that matters. Grantchester Season One comes highly
recommended. We are sincerely looking forward to Season Two! So should you.

Monday, May 16, 2016

Quentin
Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015)
squanders whatever potential it might have had to be a truly great western on a
series of miscalculations that gradually devolve it into a bloody, race-baiting
diatribe; full of the sort of mentally ill sensationalist muckraking that has
fast become a cliché instead of trope in Tarantino’s cinematic style. Carrying
over his infantile fascination with the word ‘nigger’ (and no, if Tarantino is
unashamed to bandy it about ad nauseam some 60+ times in this movie, I
certainly have no quam about marking it once for this review) – perhaps, the
most loaded and incendiary word in the English language, and, thoroughly mined
until there is literally no ‘shock value’ left in it in Tarantino’s Django Unchained (2012), herein,
Tarantino takes ‘that word’ to new
lows of casualness; to what purpose…ah, now there is a point. Or is there? Throughout
The Hateful Eight I found myself
waiting for a more prolific movie to emerge; my level of expectation, too lofty
for Tarantino to satisfy. In essence, The
Hateful Eight is Reservoir Dogs
(1992) all over again, tricked out in the frontier milieu with a sidestep into 70mm;
that glorious, though tragically defunct widescreen format, yielding
exceptional image clarity. Thanks to cinematographer, Robert Richardson, The Hateful Eighthas at least pictorial
value to recommend it; the starkly surreal depictions of its snowy Coloradan
landscapes (subbing in for Wyoming) with their epic natural splendor lending
genuine scale and scope to this otherwise wafer-thin and unprepossessing
showdown that owes more to the modern pulp crime actioner.

By now most
everyone has either heard about or read of ‘the
guitar incident’ – Tarantino derailing virtually all future relations
between the Martin Guitar Museum and any film production company hoping to
feature their product; allowing his star, Kurt Russell to destroy an 1870’s
antique on loan out in good faith, smashed to bits against a wooden pillar for
a pivotal scene. Evidently, Russell was unaware the guitar he was dismembering
was not a prop; while co-star, Jennifer Jason-Leigh became utterly horrified in
the moment; Tarantino pleased to have achieved ‘the reaction’ preserved for
posterity on celluloid, even if it alienated professional relations with the
museum for good; Martin Guitar’s Director, Dick Boak understandably revoking
all usage of any of their prized possessions after the maimed remnants of this
instrument were returned to him with an insurance claim remunerating the full
value for this antique. Alas, no dollar amount can effectively compensate for
the willful ruination of cultural heritage; something for which Tarantino seems
to possess an almost maniacal resolve and relish to dismantle.

In only 8
films, it now becomes rather apparent Tarantino’s sole purpose for making
movies is to satisfy his own inarticulate grey matter, hell-bent, all-consuming
and, as it turns out, predicated on a measly and self-devouring, gauche and
gargantuan ego masquerading as ‘style’. Even the briefest TripTik through his
work illustrates how niggardly and transparent his modus operendi has become,
unremarkably distilled into a litany of foul-mouthed vituperations, spewing
forth from the mouths of virtually every character populating his skewed
perspective on mankind in general. There are no heroes in a Tarantino movie;
arguably, no ‘normal’ people either. Add to this about 40 quarts of red dye
number two, indiscriminately splashed about until virtually every set dressing
in its path is bathed and dripping in simulated blood and guts, and,
Tarantino’s overweening sadism is gratified – even championed – as ‘art’; a
very sad state of affairs. Personally,
and apart from his one shining moment of true inspiration – Pulp Fiction (1994) – I do not consider
Quentin Tarantino a great film-maker. I keep returning to his films in the
hopes he will come around to possessing such inventiveness again. But I have marked
him previously, and will do so again herein, as a ‘one hit wonder’ merely
making, and then re-making, the same damn movie over and over again.

The innate
value of a true artisan becomes self-evident when his body of work is compiled
to be forever thereafter studied and re-evaluated both on the merit of its
individual achievements and the collective maturation of his filmmaker’s
technique. This latter appreciation can only be surmised with the passage of
time. But even with the narrowest of timelines from 1992’s Reservoir Dogs to The
Hateful Eight, it has become increasingly transparent Tarantino’s goal is
neither to excite nor entertain; merely to startle, repulse and disgust his
audience. It really is a dead end pursuit; a race to the bottom with varying
degrees of immediate popularity afforded him in the present, but with
everlasting detriment done to the longevity of his reputation. With each
subsequent movie, Tarantino, in absence of genuine originality, has deduced
that any old debasement of history, steeped in appalling levels or sexism and
racism, will suffice to sell tickets. And, in this regard, Tarantino has not
been wrong. His movies are generally ‘well received’, make money, and have
acquired a following that teeters on branding him an auteur. Even as I make
mention of this I can sense the likes of Hitchcock, Cukor, Ford, Wyler, Wilder,
Minnelli, and others, collectively rolling over in their graves.

The Hateful Eight is a ravenous beast of a movie,
its motley crew of disreputable and blood-soaked hags and homicidal brutes
sub-par for the course. Tarantino cleverly masks his perversions by getting
together an all-star cast to peddle his putrefied wares. Star power aside, The Hateful Eight has very little going
for it apart from its gimmick to stage a sixties styled roadshow, complete with
overture, intermission and entr’acte. Over the course of Tarantino’s ascendancy in Hollywood he has proven both a passion and contempt for golden age
Hollywood; The Hateful Eight, his
latest ‘homage’ and/or sacrifice on his altar. Let us be fair in reassessing Reservoir Dogs as not so much a
revisionist’s take on the classic ‘caper/heist’ gone hopelessly awry (a la the
likes of The Italian Job 1969); or Jackie Brown (1997) as a bloodletting revamp
of the Blaxploitation cycle that performed a rather tasteless phallatio on the
American cinema of the mid to late 70s (Cotton
Comes to Harlem, (1970), Foxy Brown
(1974), and Kill Bill Volumes 1 and
2; cheaply disguised erotica, using the patina of that same decade’s affinity
for the kung-fu/karate flicks. Inglourious
Basterds (2009) was Tarantino’s historical revision of WWII, reconstituted
as a Nazi-fied anti-Semitic harangue, making Jews the blood-thirstier of its
perpetrators; and finally Django: Unchained
– watering down the severity of radical racism with its’ over-the-top,
tongue-in-cheek exchange in loaded insults.

And now, drum
roll, please – The Hateful Eight; a
sort of compendium of all of Tarantino’s derisory venom, consolidated under the
roof of one expansive trading outpost in the middle of a snowy nowhere. No one gets
out of this one alive and Tarantino wouldn’t have it any other way – his theater
of death completely imploded in the final reel. I will venture a guess there is
not much he can do as a director except to go in a completely opposite
direction from this point onward. I mean, Tarantino has given us just about all
of the exploding heads, blasted out innards, blood-disgorging, castrating,
ball-bashing, ultra-sadistic dismemberment of not only human bodies but equally
distorted perceptions on the human condition – that which supposedly makes us
‘humane’ and ‘superior’ beings in the food chain. But Tarantino has devalued
just about every principle that ought to make life worth living, his screen
violence gone so far beyond what we used to consider as ‘permissible’ to now
appear as though he were smearing feces across our movie screens with mocking
insolence, as with the degenerate immunity of a mad creator, drunk on his own
misguided sense of genius, though tragically suffering from some inbred,
nipple-sucking melancholia. Even the most basic primates have more aptitude and
intuition than this.

And yet I
never ceased to be amazed by the warped and frustrated elements that surfaces
to the top of Tarantino’s toilet bowl with the nagging resolve of that last
piece of excrement refusing to get flushed from my consciousness after the
houselights have come up. Tarantino suffers from an affliction that is by no
means exclusive to him; that of the equally dumb and lucky fatalist who, having
outfoxed and made money for the bean counters presently in charge of
Hollywood’s dream factories – some might argue, by articulating a popular rage
- now fancies himself as its jack of all trades, when time and again, he has
simply proven to be the master of none. If Tarantino would only focus on one
element of what he remarks to be his all-encompassing virtuosity, leave
directing to the directors, or writing to the writers, and most definitely, acting
to the actors, he might unearth a new precedent that could both delight and
entertain without indoctrination. But his approach to storytelling is so
sledgehammer-heavy and so densely packaged around the most contemptuous tone of
an enraged middle-aged kid who never grew into his long pants - and thus isn’t
quite sure if they fit - he holds the rest of us in the balance of his very
tightly clenched fists, determined to pummel our sense of morality – so
transparently casting judgment on it as idiotic and/or just plain wrong. If we
are to be fair and tolerant in assessing The
Hateful Eighton its merits as well as its misfires, it is high time Tarantino
quit talking down to his audience and relinquish his mind-warping insolence to
make the rest of us see the world with its inherent ugliness amplified all out
of its natural proportion.

Part of the
problem I have with The Hateful Eight
is that it perversely feeds upon the new American standard in degenerate race
relations; Samuel Jackson, doing a variation on Pulp Fiction’s Jules Winnfield as Major Marquis Warren. Jackson is
a very fine actor – with enough cachet to exalt his rank to that of a
‘premiere’ among his contemporaries. It is Jackson’s superb delivery of the
lines he has been given to regale us with a sordid flashback of abject
humiliation (Chester Charles Smithers (Craig Stark), forced at gunpoint to trek
across the frozen tundra naked, orally raped, then murdered by Warren as
retaliation for his father, Gen. Sandy Smithers (Bruce Dern) cold-blooded execution
of black union soldiers at the Battle of Baton Rouge) that carries the ballast of
this scene’s dramatic tension. Alas, unable to resist showing us everything, we
get momentary flashes of Warren’s beady-eyed elation, head cocked into the
steely glint of winter’s light, as he savors the breaking down to bedrock of a
man’s character and soul. Revenge is indeed a dish best served cold, Warren
denying Chester the bodily warmth of a blanket earlier promised, then cruelly
executing him in a manner to mimic his own father’s butchery. And yet, for all its ruthlessness, this
moment just seems very jejune at best; merely the axis on which all of the
blood-laced carnage yet to follow will pivot.

The Hateful Eight begins several years after the
Civil War with some truly majestic landscapes to recommend it; Colorado
(substituted for Wyoming), a stark, yet compellingly pristine backdrop draped
in winter white on which Tarantino intends to let the rivers run red with the
blood of virtually his entire cast. In nobler times, this would be considered a
very Shakespearean pursuit. Alas, there are no noblemen in Tarantino’s
entourage; no tragic voices of reason to be pitted and prematurely snuffed out
in their prime and, thus, no character for the audience to relate to or truly haunt
us with their epic sense of loss; the cornerstone of all iconic works of
tragedy since Medea. No, we are deprived
such luxury and satisfaction, replaced by a den of repugnant and vicious bottom
feeders, permitted the run of the play with their contracts written in blood.
We meet Major Marquis Warren on this snowy path to Red Rock, Wyoming. Warren, a bounty hunter transporting three
corpses on which he intends to collect, is the subject of cruel fate; or is it divine
comeuppance?; his horses half-frozen and dead, leaving him stranded in the
middle of nowhere with an advancing blizzard licking at his boots.

The wagon
master, O.B. Jackson (James Sparks) alerts Warren that his fare is not the
obliging sort; and in short order Warren realizes as much when he is met with
the point of a rifle. Inside the carriage is another of Tarantino’s uncouth
brethren, bounty hunter, John Ruth (Kurt Russell) aptly nicknamed ‘the hangman’,
transporting captured fugitive, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh, utterly
wasted in a thankless part, the literal punching bag of the piece) to see her
dangling from the end of a rope in Red Rock. While suspicious of Warren at
first, the Major’s reputation has preceded him, as has Ruth’s with Warren; the
two men regarding one another with edgy admiration. Ruth becomes enamored by
Warren’s claim he has a personal letter from President Abraham Lincoln. As any
man able to call himself a ‘friend’ of the President can likely be trusted. So
Ruth allows Warren to accompany them on their journey. While Ruth takes the
letter shown him by Warren at face value, Daisy spits on it as an obvious
forgery; causing Warren to physically assault her. Not long thereafter, the
stagecoach encounters another lost soul along these deserted parts; militiaman,
Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who reports to be on his way to Red Rock to
assume duties as its new sheriff. Mannix, an unrepentant racist, and Warren,
unwilling to back down, almost come to blows over each other’s controversial
war records.

The stagecoach
is threatened by the advancing storm; its passengers forced to take refuge
inside Minnie's Haberdashery, a nearby trading outpost. Curiously, the
proprietress, Minnie Mink (Dana Gourrier), a familiar face to Ruth, is nowhere
to be seen. Instead, everyone is cautiously greeted by Bob (Demián Bichir); a
Mexican who claims Minnie has departed to comfort her ailing mother, and thus,
having left him in charge. Bob’s story does not ring true, his immediate
refusal to allow Warren to tend to the stages’ horses inside the nearby barn,
and later, the discovery of a wayward pink jellybean tucked between the
floorboards, suggesting something of a violent nature has caused Minnie to
disappear. Or has she already been picked off by Bob and the other lodgers; Oswaldo
Mobray (the morbidly underused Tim Roth); a.k.a. ‘English Pete Hicox’ – a.k.a.
‘the little man’; Joe Gage (Michael Madsen); a.k.a. Grouch Douglass – a.k.a.
‘the cow puncher’, who when pressed by Ruth, reports to be on his way to visit
his own mother for Christmas, and finally, Sanford Smithers, a retired and very
prickly Confederate General. Almost immediately, Ruth astutely recognizes the
only way to trust these curious gatherers, is to disarm everyone except Warren.
Ruth is well aware Daisy’s gang might be on the prowl and plotting her daring
escape.

Inexplicably,
the tone of this tension shifts from the strangers in their midst to Warren’s
own credibility; Mannix surmising Warren’s Lincoln letter is a forgery, thus
forcing Warren to admit as much, but, in his own defense, claiming it buys him
leeway with otherwise racist whites. The old General is very much of this ilk –
perverse in his hatred of blacks until Warren suggests he knew Smithers’ son,
Chester, since found dead and buried in a wilderness grave nearby. Warren
offers to regale the General with the particulars of Chester’s demise; a story
that quickly reveals how Warren unabashedly delighted in the abject
humiliation, oral rape and murder of Chester; considering his interpretation of
frontier justice hearty recompense for Smithers’ execution of black soldiers at
the Battle of Baton Rouge. Having left his unloaded pistol on the table nearest
Smithers now, the old man’s eyes welling up with tears of disbelief, anger,
sorrow and pain; Warren goads the General to attack him. Smithers takes this
bait and is executed by Warren, who thereafter claims ‘self-defense’ and/or
justifiable homicide as his only recourse.
In all the chaos no one, except Daisy, notices someone has poisoned the
newly brewed coffee.

Again,
Tarantino, ever the egotist than the clever filmmaker, cannot resist the urge
to insert himself into this tall tale and show us how uber-clever he has been. The Hateful Eight is ridiculously
divided into ‘Chapters’ like a novel; Tarantino pausing to pontificate in a
recap of the previous scene’s highlights; as though to mock his audience for
not ‘getting it’ the first time. A more effective reveal might have come from
either better staging of the previous sequence (to let the audience figure this
one out for themselves) or in the staging of a flashback (soon to be employed
by Tarantino to even more obvious effect for yet another trick up his sleeve).
But no; we get Tarantino’s voice-over instead, haughty and reveling in having
pulled the wool over our eyes. Too late Ruth and O.B. realize they have been
poisoned, spewing fountains of thick bloody vomit as they crumple in agony and
collapse to the floor. The expiring Ruth attempts to strangle Daisy. However,
in his weakened condition he is overtaken and murdered by her instead using his
own gun. Warren manages to disarm Daisy before she can free herself of Ruth’s
handcuffs. Now, Warren assesses the situation with an almost Sherlock Holmesian
proficiency for tying up all of Tarantino’s remaining loose ends. He deduces
Mannix is innocent of the crime of poisoning the coffee, having almost taken to
swig of it himself. Warren also ingeniously reconstructs the murders of Minnie
Mink, her husband Sweet Dave (Gene Jones), fellow employee, Gemma (Belinda
Owino) and another wagon master, Six-Horse Judy (Zoë Bell doing a Calamity Jane
knock-off), innocently responsible for bringing these bandits to the
haberdashery.

To expose the
identity of the poisoner, Warren now aims his gun at Daisy’s head. Joe
confesses. Alas, no one has anticipated that perhaps they are not alone; Warren
realizing too late another plotter is lurking beneath the floorboards. This
mystery man shoots Warren in the crotch. Oswaldo and Mannix wound each other in
an exchange of gunfire. Joe is shot by
Warren who now orders the hidden assassin to reveal himself or Daisy will die.
Enter Jody Domergue (Channing Tatum), Daisy’s mercenary brother who, having
learned of his sister’s capture planned for a showdown with Ruth in Red Rock.
Alas, the same blizzard that thwarted Ruth’s journey into town, earlier
resulted in Jody and his entourage’s detour at Minnie’s; their execution of
this trading outpost clan, sparing Gen. Smithers to use as window-dressing for
their diabolical plot.

Alas, either
Jody has underestimated Warren’s resolve to be just as ruthless a butcher, or
we, as the audience, have not seen enough Tarantino movies to recognize almost
immediately how this one will end. Warren brutally blows Jody’s head apart with
his pistols, the tidal wave of blood and grey matter showering a horrified
Daisy who now angrily claims Jody has amassed an even bigger rescue party sure
to descend on Minnie’s at daybreak and assassinate anyone who stands in the way
of her freedom. Daisy tempts Mannix. If he will only kill Warren, she will
promise him immunity from their wrath at dawn and even let him claim the
bounties on all of these piled up corpses – a formidable sum. Oswaldo echoes
Daisy’s suggestion, briefly contemplated by Mannix before Warren shoots both Daisy
in the foot and Oswaldo in the leg. More bullets, more bodies and a brief
respite from the carnage as Mannix temporarily blacks out from blood loss;
regaining consciousness just in time to seriously wound Daisy. In honor of
Ruth’s commitment to see her hanged in Red Rock, the dying Warren encourages
Mannix to help him string up Daisy from the rafters. As she expires, her neck
slowly twisting, then, breaking, the two men contemplate what their own lives
have been worth; Mannix mildly amused by Warren’s forged Lincoln letter,
reading from it aloud.

The Hateful Eight is brainless, bloated and
self-indulgent to a fault; curious too of Tarantino to stage his Agatha
Christie-ish locked room murder mystery in the ultra-widescreen 70mm process; a
contradiction between format and subject matter. Arguably, Tarantino knows how
to write dialogue. There is a lot of exposition in The Hateful Eight. But he cannot resist to unravel his solid prose
with loaded four-letter barbs and a repetition of ‘that word’ until both have effectively lost all potency to shock
and revile. The vices far outweigh the
virtues of this piece and, in the end we are left with a fizzling, hair-trigger
pseudo-western/noir, populated by grotesques left virtually unrecognizable –
even as stereotypes to the audience or archetypes gleaned from another Tarantino
movie. There is no narrative arc, per say, other than to cage the cast like a
pack of unwieldy animals and then let the lowest common denominator of their
collected villainy, rather than nature, run its course. Tarantino’s view of
humanity continues to depress. Lacking a denouement, or at least one to suggest
there was anything better or more to this story than the devolution of man into
beast, The Hateful Eightelevates
nihilism to a finite craft, though never an art. You could easily do without
seeing this one. I could sincerely do without any more such debauched outings
from Tarantino – period!

The Hateful Eight on Blu-ray is an enigma.
Tarantino has denied home theater viewers the ‘luxury’ of experiencing the full
breadth of his depraved wish fulfillment. We get only the ‘theatrical cut’ and
not the roadshow. Honestly, it’s a silly decision; one made arbitrarily by
Tarantino to suggest the only ‘real’ way to experience the movie in its
complete form is at the cinema. We lose the overture, intermission and entr’acte,
plus a few choice bits of dialogue that otherwise expands the run time without enlarging
either the vocabulary or the impact of the story itself. The Blu-ray’s image is
immaculate, as expected; capturing the subtlest nuances in Robert Richardson’s
low-lit interior cinematography. From a pictorial standpoint, the best parts of
The Hateful Eight take place outside
– a pity these represent less than a third of the run time. But the
establishing long shots lensed by Richardson are of a magnitude as exhilarating
as anything created for a David Lean epic; smooth, steady master shots of the
mountainous terrain looking positively ravishing under a blanket of undisturbed
snow.

Once we move
indoors, the effect of 70mm is greatly subdued; Tarantino expertly filling the
vast expanses of the screen with interesting details, and blocking the action
with meticulous craftsmanship. As I stated at the beginning of this review –
there’s nothing wrong with the ‘look’ of the picture; only the picture itself,
and this 1080p presentation will surely not disappoint. Rich color saturation,
natural flesh tones, exquisite amounts of fine detail, beautifully textured
film grain and superior contrast. The
DTS 5.1 audio is equally impressive. Frankly, from a movie made only last year,
we expected no less. Extras are disappointing: a brief ‘making of’ featurette
and a self-aggrandizing look at the 70mm process hosted by Samuel L. Jackson,
as though he were heralding the coming of the next The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Alas, only ‘the ugly’ is presented
for us herein. Bottom line: pass and be glad that you did.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Bogie and
Bacall bid farewell to their on-screen teaming in Delmer Daves’ gritty, though
misguided thriller, Dark Passage
(1947) an ambitious, often brooding hybrid of the escaped convict pot boiler that
had been all the rage during the early to mid-1930's. Trademarking their ‘ripped
from the headlines’ approach to telling hard tales of even harsher-living
characters of spurious repute, Warner Bros. had practically invented the
‘gangster’ sub-genre, cultivating their own ‘murderer’s
row’ of rough n’ ready all-stars with headliners like George Raft, James
Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and – yes, even Humphrey Bogart; all of them rivals
to the likes of a John Dillinger or Al Capone; at least…in the movies. But by 1947,
the Robin Hood-esque exploits of these real-life reprobates had decidedly
fallen out of fashion with audiences. Moreover, they flew in the face of the
newly established Production Code of Ethics that, by 1939, had purged
Hollywood’s movie screens of such deliberate ruthlessness. Warner never entirely
abandoned the gangster flick however, even as it abided by this new tradition
in the picture-making biz. Thus, by 1940 even Eddy Robinson was mugging for the
camera, doing a wicked lampoon of his formerly sadistic ‘Little Caesar (1931) in Brother
Orchid (1940). You dirty rat, indeed!

Dark Passageis perhaps the feeblest of Warner’s attempts to
resuscitate the gangster sub-genre, made a full two years before Cagney’s own
superlative benchmark and goodbye to it, White
Heat (1949), sounding the death knell once and for all. If anything, Dark Passage illustrates just how much
Bogart’s movie-land persona had grown up since his early days at the studio;
chronically cast as a Duke Mantee knock off who gets ‘knocked off’ in the third reel.
Herein, director, Delmer Daves has become utterly enamored with the
subjective camera – a gimmick used this same year even less effectively in
MGM’s Lady in the Lake. The virtues
of the subjective POV are equally its vices and, indeed, studio head, Jack L.
Warner was not at all pleased with the final results in Daves’ grand experiment;
Bogart’s iconic visage absent from virtually all but a handful of brief shots
scattered throughout the last third of the picture; the audience limited to
seeing only what Bogie’s alter ego, Vincent Parry, sees. Mostly, Vincent has
his eyes on renewed hope reflected back at him by one Irene Jansen (Lauren
Bacall); a successful landscape artist, living fashionably in a San Franciscan
deco apartment.

Inexplicably, Irene
is Vincent Parry’s singular champion all through the lean years he served in
San Quentin for a murder he did not commit. Buried under all the hoopla and gimmickry is an
occasionally clever, though never entirely engaging ‘who done it?’ almost as desperate as Parry to break out and have
its’ day in court. Alas, Dark Passage
can never decide whether it is a crime/thriller, a chase for the man with – or without – the face, an atypical
Bogie/Bacall romance, or just a nice – if quirky – little flick, fitting neatly
under the hashtag ‘crime doesn’t pay’
but if it did, the dividends would hardly satisfy. Ironic too, as Dark Passageends with no fulfillment
for our hero’s journey; unearthing his frame-up and tracking the deceiver down
to a seedy downtown apartment, only to have her inadvertently stumble and
plummet through an open window, thereby destroying all hope to gain an
eye-witness confession: also, now likely to be blamed by police, rife to pin
another murder charge on Vincent Parry’s already blackened reputation.

A genuine pity
Daves’ screenplay, based on the novel by David Goodis, is a little too cliché,
and much too conveniently stitched together to satisfy even the most liberal
suspensions of disbelief. Whether we are to trust in Vincent’s innocence from
the outset in the same sort of naïve and nobly fawning way Irene has without
possessing anything more or better than blind-sighted faith in a man she barely
knows, or, suspect the duplicity of her ‘best friend’, Madge Rapf’s (Agnes
Moorehead), middle-aged quixotic venom at the crux of the supposed ‘crime of
passion’ that sent Vincent to prison for life, now rekindled and soon to be
exacted full-throttle on the mysterious stranger recuperating from plastic
surgery in Irene’s apartment (surgery that effectively turns gritty mug shots
of a lumbering clod into…well…Humphrey Bogart, thus leaving him to briefly walk
the town with impunity, undetectable as the daring escapee for whom an
all-points bulletin and roadblocks have been set up); and further still, to think
a total stranger, cabbie, Sam (Tom D'Andrea) would lead a wanted man to an even
more shadowy figure, disgraced ‘doctor’(Houseley
Stevenson), who takes pleasure in creating real-life works of art from crudely sewn
flesh; Dark Passage is a movie more
invested in the magic of movies and its own fanciful style than substance and
far more in love with some truly gorgeous B&W cinematography by Sidney
Hickox. Dark Passage really is
Hickox’s show – from its exquisitely dank, bleak and perpetually moody usage of
real San Franciscan locations, to its Salvador Dali-esque inspired
hallucination/nightmare (as Vincent awakens from the ether after his surgery). This
movie is a textbook example of how an elegant approach can divert attention
away from a rather pedestrian and occasionally bungled plot.

Style, alas,
will only get you so far: ditto for star power. Dark Passage would be nothing at all without the Bogie and Bacall,
and, Hickox’s ingeniously visualized masquerade. But it is a movie that desperately
wants the audience to forget there is a crime story buried somewhere beneath
all the gimmicky ‘first person’ viewpoints of our rather empathetic
protagonist; Bogart’s persona and particularly his voice, utterly at odds with
the newspaper mug shots of Vincent Parry, looking about twice as tall and
equally as wide in the shoulders with a square-jawed scowl that could stop a
coal barge. Our first glimpse of Bogie, post-surgery and out of his bandages,
gives Claude Rains’ Invisible Man a real run for his money. In hindsight, it is
not altogether a convincing juxtaposition with the rest of ‘the truth’ as represented in this story.
We can completely understand why Madge hasn’t a clue the diminutive ‘new guy’
in Irene’s apartment isn’t the same fellow she had a jealous yen for prior to
the operation – because he isn’t; her recollections stirred only by the sound
of Parry’s muffled voice through Irene’s door. Personally, I have my doubts the
various bits of business conducted by a pair of unreservedly ‘werewolf hairy’ hands
in front of the first person camera are not actually Bogart’s; looking far too
meaty and in need of a good trim/wax.
Besides, why pay a major star like Bogart to do what any B-actor or grip
aspiring to the big time could, given half the prompt and motivation by a
skilled director like Delmer Daves?

“What the hell is the point of having a star in the
part?” Jack L. Warner reportedly told Daves after screening the early rushes.
Warner’s legendary lack of tact is practically digestible herein and well worth
taking into consideration. As we only see what the camera sees for nearly
two/thirds of the movie, we never really get to experience the sort of insolent
on-camera chemistry that made Bogie and Bacall such legendary sparring partners
on the big screen; no deep romantic clinches either, as it is virtually
impossible for Irene to get close enough to the camera to make it work. So, we
are left with a view witnessed through a shadowbox; Hickox’s camera panning
back and forth across an enviable landscape of shadow-laden, foggy vistas,
punctuated by the lonely call of harbor boat whistles and the occasional echo
of shoes clicking on damp pavement. This sets the tone of the piece, although
without ever allowing us access into Vincent Parry’s head. Part of what a
skilled actor brings to any part is body language – particularly, in facial
gesturing. Without Bogie’s descriptive visage to crib from, the first third of
Vincent Parry’s escape and survival devolves into cheaply imagined pantomime;
ultimately rectified when the bandages come off and we see Bogart’s
reincarnation for the first time. But even with his head wrapped up like a
mummy, Bogart manages to do some miraculous emoting with his eyes. It works,
sort of, but comes far too late to make any real difference.

Yet, despite
these shortcomings, Dark Passage is
hardly a write-off, as no picture co-starring Bogart and Bacall could ever be
considered ‘bad’ on principle alone. However, it miserably fails to hold even
the faintest flicker in notable resemblance to their other great moments
together – particularly in To Have and
Have Not (1944) and The Big Sleep
(1946). Without Bogie, we are left with Bacall to carry the bulk of the load,
her reactions to acting opposite a camera, with Bogart undoubtedly standing off
to the side of its’ bulky apparatus, feeding her the next line, creates a few
rather woefully transparent moments of awkwardness. And Bacall just looks
different – ditto for Bogart (once revealed), his painted image used in posters
to promote the film, that of the Bogie we best recall in his physical prime a
la Casablanca (1942), decidedly not matching
up with the more careworn, weather-beaten and skinny fellow whom we later meet
in passing, but who looks as though makeup artist, Perc Westmore has plastered a
little too much rouge and lip gloss on an already sweat-soaked face. For more
than half the movie, Bogie remains an enigma to the plot despite being the
focus of it – the elephant in the room no one gets to see except Irene. I can
completely understand why Dark Passage
was not another Bogie/Bacall mega hit when it first came out. I mean, if you
went to the circus to see the elephant and only the clowns appeared, you would
be fairly upset, n’est pas? And Jack Warner likely fancied himself a showman of
P.T. Barnum’s ilk; different medium and minus Barnum’s personal panache.

Viewed today, Dark Passage is a fairly gripping
story, steeped in uncanny cynicism. Bogart gives his reincarnation of Vincent
Parry class, tinged in faux heroism - two contradictory sides to any man's life
clashed together in Daves' screenplay like the tectonic plates of the San
Andreas Fault and with just as much friction mounting as the narrative
progresses. Moving along: Bogart is
Vincent Parry, a man wrongfully accused of murdering his wife and sent to
prison for life. He escapes San Quentin in a metal garbage barrel (honestly, is
no one in the watch tower being vigilant today?). After a terrible tumble off
the open back truck, down a steep ravine, and landing in a watery underpass
near Golden Gate Park, Vincent is rescued by amateur painter, Irene Jansen
(Bacall) who – conveniently – just
happens to be nearby when her radio tunes into the all-points bulletin
about Parry’s daring escape, and just
happens to be passing by the spot where his battered mode of escape has
landed. Call it fate. I prefer to think of it as the most utterly far-fetched of
movie-land contrivances. Irene smuggles Parry under a tarp in the backseat of
her station wagon, past police who have already cornered off the Golden Gate
Bridge. Again, the boys in blue are not very thorough here. They don’t even
lift up the tarp!

Back at Irene’s
apartment, Parry gets some spending money; then finds a sympathetic cabbie to
take him to a disgraced plastic surgeon who will alter his facial features.
Both men are of the anti-establishment ilk – unusual for a movie of this
vintage; even more progressive when one considers neither knows for sure the
fellow they are aiding and abetting is not
a cold-blooded killer. A subtler homage: the cabbie is called Sam – the name of
Bogart’s right-hand, immortalized by the inimitable Dooley Wilson in Casablanca; actor, Tom D'Andrea here
giving this Sam a gum-chewing lowbrow
satisfaction as the ‘everyman’ just trying to make a buck, suddenly invigorated
by the prospect of making a few more off the meter, and, perfectly
counterbalanced by Houseley Stevenson’s moderately brutish, though equally as
blunt Doc Walter Coley, who casually threatens ever-lasting post-operative
disfigurement before applying the ether. Each man becomes a distorted
apparition in Vincent Parry’s drug-induced post-operative fantasy/nightmare;
the ‘dream sequence’ vaguely reminiscent to Gregory Peck’s regressed memory
fantasia in Hitchcock’s Spellbound
(1945).

The plot
thickens as Parry arranges to stay with an old friend, George Fellsinger (Rory
Mallinson) while he recovers from his wounds. However, when Parry returns to
George's apartment all bandaged up a few hours later he discovers George’s
corpse lying on the floor. Someone is on to him; perhaps the same person who
murdered his wife. Retreating into the night, Vincent eventually winds up back
at Irene’s. For the next several days she shelters him, both from the police
and Madge’s probative inquiries. Irene is a very cool customer; comforting to a
point, but devious to a fault. Her absence from the apartment leads to an
unexpected chance encounter between Madge and Vincent. He manages to discourage
her from entering. Ah, but the voice is familiar – too familiar to be ignored.
It is…no, it couldn’t be. Yes – it’s Vincent. Recognizing the danger he has put
Irene in, Vincent elects to vacate her apartment in search of the truth. Since
Madge has not seen his new look, Vincent pursues her to a seedy downtown apartment.
He is determined to get to the bottom of things. But after questioning Madge
for only a few moments, she cleverly recognizes the man behind the voice is
Vincent Parry. What happens next is rather obtusely handled by director, Delmer
Daves; Madge retreating in abject fear as Vincent approaches in a
non-threatening way; pressed against a large picture window that gives way.
Madge plummets several stories to her death, the thud of her broken body on
concrete far below bringing a small army of police to investigate ‘the crime
scene’. Madge murdered Vincent’s wife
out of jealousy, then deliberately helped to frame him out of spite. But who
will ever know the truth now? In a frantic race against time, Vincent and Irene
quietly meet in secret at the bus station before he makes a run for the border.
Considering the veritable military presence closing in on all sides, Vincent’s
miraculous vanishing act is capped off by another truly ironic moment; an
epilogue inside a chichi nightclub in Mexico City. A hunted man no more,
Vincent is reunited with Irene, the two sharing a moment together – presumably to
lead to romance – before the screen fades to black.

Dark Passage is about as dubious and austere as movies get; Delmer
Daves casting a veil of alienation over his big city milieu. Perhaps, Daves
firmly believed with Bogart as his star nothing could discourage the picture’s success.
He was mistaken. Not even Bogart’s reputation – nor the promise of the ole
Bogie/Bacall chemistry – could salvage Dark
Passage from devolving into a rather careworn and remorseless epitaph. For
certain, part of the picture’s awkwardness is owed to its first person POV.
This dominates two thirds of the movie, but deprives us of Bogart’s iconic
visage. The other problem with Dark
Passage is its screenplay; held together by Vincent Parry’s oft mindless
skulking in search of clues. Here is a guy with no ‘Plan B’ – living moment to
moment like a scared little animal being hunted by a pack of wild dogs. Odd
too, since Parry’s pre-Bogart persona suggests a real piece of work operating
outside the law – thug muscle with fists of steel. With Bogart’s casting – and big
reveal some 39 minutes in – presided by the notion plastic surgery can magically
transform a muscled-up oaf into…well, Humphrey Bogart – seems not only inconceivable,
but actually quite silly. And Bogart offers us little of his trademarked rank sarcasm
that, at least in other movies, translates rather effectively to raw masculine
toughness, with or without a gun.

Even less
palpable is Irene’s rather insidious fawning over Vincent, her motivation to
see him a free man as wafer thin as the rest of the plot. Are you ready for it?
– because the particulars of Vincent’s case recall Irene’s own father’s trial
and subsequent incarceration, resulting in his death behind bars. Oh brother,
is Irene the posterchild for ‘hybristophilia’ or what? It’s too bad for this Bonnie (but perfect for the Production
Code) her Clyde is actually quite blameless of the crime for which he has been
accused. Not that it matters to Irene one way or the other. But as it turns out,
Vincent Parry would no more harm a hair on either his philandering wife’s or
even Madge’s head than defile a chrysanthemum. And Bacall, for all her
intuitions and wit as an actress elsewhere, herein plays Irene Jansen right
down the middle as a sort of melting mass of ‘his gal Friday’ flavored butter,
darting sexual attraction utterly muffled beneath her high-collared noblesse
oblige as the forthright defender/patron saint of all lost causes. Virtue does
not really suit Bacall’s temperament – at least, not in the movies. There is
not enough piss and vinegar in this Sweet Polly Purebred to spark the flint
during her dulcet moments of romanticized fantasizing. While poster art and
trailers sell Dark Passage as full
of lust and passion, what we actually get is a very antiseptic story about Suzy
Cream Cheese and her Sport n’ Shave Ken doll who just had the dumb luck to do
real time in a penitentiary for a crime he did not commit.

It is one of
Hollywood’s mad ironies Agnes Moorehead once again plays the reviled bitch in Dark Passage. Nearly her entire career
was built upon such variations as the spinsterish and persnickety dried prune
with nothing but bitterness and venom in her heart; ironic, because in life,
Moorehead’s philanthropy was as big as all creation, the keys to her home and
her heart left for anyone in need of a helping hand, a good ear to listen and a
gentle word, providing genuine comfort. The
last bit of clumsiness that makes Dark
Passage B-grade Bogie/Bacall (and occasionally C-grade noir) goes to Delmer
Daves’ artistic choices; not only for his screenplay, sorely sagging at
intervals, thus allowing the mind to wander – if still be reasonably anesthetized
by Sidney Hickox’s inventive and stylish cinematography – but also, for his
rather ridiculous abandonment of the subjective POV after Vincent becomes ‘Humphrey
Bogart’ incognito. It is a jarring moment of transition; the audience, conjoined
with the camera’s eye at the start and cajoled into seeing only what the main
character does, suddenly separated from this myopic viewpoint and brought into
every scene as the traditionally omnipotent third party, outside looking in for
these characters’ motivations and the next pivotal plot point. In the final
analysis, Dark Passage is not a
great movie. It remains a cagily blemished creature of varying intrigues but
like the proverbial toad, no matter how many times kissed, never manages to
morph into a prince.

With Warner Archive’s
debut of Dark Passage on Blu-ray,
the only co-starring Bogie/Bacall feature left to languish is To Have and Have Not. One sincerely hopes
the delay will not be long. Despite the passage of time, Dark Passageon DVD looked superb. On Blu-ray, it advances in all
the usually expected areas; better contrast, more refined film grain and a
greater amount of detail to delight and amaze. Warner Archive really ought to
take a bow and a breath for this and all their other hi-def releases, though
particularly the unexpected onslaught of deep catalog titles released as of
January this year. Classic movie lovers are being repeatedly treated to Warner’s
gradual reopening of their formidable cave of wonders; cinema gems culled from
the back catalogs of three golden age movie studios (WB, MGM and RKO) Wow and
thank you again! God – and executive management willing – we should see more
great titles from this offshoot of Warner Home Video proper in the coming months
with rustlings of pending Blu-rays for Victor/Victoria,
Love Me Or Leave Me, Silk Stockings
and She Wore A Yellow Ribbon already
slated.

While I have,
from time to time, questioned the decision-making process giving certain ‘lesser’
catalog undue preference, I have nothing but unaffected praise for the
consistent level of quality afforded these hi-def releases. So, a bow is
definitely in order. Consider it done from this end. The mono DTS audio is, as the
visuals, up to snuff. It sounds fantastic. Extras are regurgitated from the old
DVD and include a Bugs Bunny short and featurette on the making of the movie. Dark Passage is a reference quality Blu-ray
of a less than perfect movie. I would much rather have it this way than the
other way around. Wouldn’t you? Bottom line: very highly recommended! Support
the format and the studio’s efforts. Buy today. Treasure forever.

About Me

Nick Zegarac is a freelance writer/editor and graphics artist. He holds a Masters in Communications and an Honors B.A in Creative Lit from the University of Windsor.
He is currently a freelance writer and has been a contributing editor for Black Moss Press and is a featured contributor to online's The Subtle Tea. He's also has had two screenplays under consideration in Hollywood.
Last year he finished his first novel and is currently searching for an agent to represent him.
Contact Nick via email at movieman@sympatico.ca